Fort Bliss Monitor

Urban team training molds combat engineers into infantry Soldiers

Staff Sgt. Catherine Pauley
2nd Bde., 91st Div. Public Affairs

Staff Sgt. Jeremy Baum, a Fort Carson-based 2nd Brigade, 91st Division trainer follows Soldiers from B Co., 107 Engineer Bn. during an urban terrain training exercise. Spc. Johnny Stachowicz leads the Ironwood, Mich.-based Soldiers.

Staff Sgt. Jeremy Baum, a trainer with 2nd Brigade, 91st Division (Training Support), said the unit his team is training – the Ironwood, Mich.-based B Company, 107th Engineer Battalion – has done a great job transitioning from being combat engineers into more of an infantry-type unit as they prepare to deploy to Southwest Asia.

“The unit knows their jobs as engineers so we give them a fresh sheet of paper, and as a training brigade, we teach the Soldiers from the ground up,” said Baum, an active-duty infantry Soldier. “We teach them things from short marksmanship range drills up to entering and clearing buildings.”

Baum also credits his team conducting the training. “Our team at Fort Bliss works really well together. The bottom line is we have a service to these Soldiers. We aren’t the Soldiers making the decisions in Iraq and we remind the unit we can only take their training so far, then they have to ultimately make those decisions.”

Baum said his observation-controller trainers teach Soldiers that a bad decision is better than no decision. “In an urban terrain situation, you have a four-man team, and you’re depending on everyone in that four-man team to get into the room, pick up security, engage targets and to come in and dominate and control that room,” he said. “As Soldiers are entering the building, we call the doorway the ‘fatal funnel’ because that’s where everybody is channeled through and it’s also where the enemy is going to focus their field of fire the majority of time.

“With that said, if the No. 1 (lead) man or the No. 2 man in the team can’t decide which way they want to go when they enter a building and they get stuck in the doorway, essentially you then have four Soldiers unable to move or engage a target,” Baum said. “They depend on each other and that’s why it’s important they make a decision and go with it, even if they realize they went the wrong direction.

Baum’s team also teaches target discrimination – being able to tell if the person is a bad guy or good guy. “At Fort Bliss we teach target discrimination by using color balloons – red for the bad guy and blue for unarmed civilian,” he said.

This training has given these Ironwood Soldiers a feeling of confidence as they finish training prior to joining the 29th Bde. Combat Team already in Iraq. B Co.’s Spc. D.J. Hren, of Crystal Falls, Mich., has helped build the unit’s confidence with his four years of active duty infantry experience and feels pretty good going into the final two days of training.

“We are growing together as a squad and are working more as a team,” Hren said. “We are learning each other’s movements and we feel comfortable as a team after all of our training.” The 24-year-old feels the urban-terrain exercise of entering and clearing a building went well.

Staff Sgt. James Chiapuzio, 34, of Ironwood, said he basically hand-picked his squad. “We have a prior-service infantryman and a prior service Marine which makes our squad ‘rock’.” Chiapuzio, a squad leader said, “This urban-terrain training we are doing right now is the most meaningful training so far.”

Spc. Terrance Sordahl, 23, of Mason, Wis., said the village raids were his highlight over the past two months of training but also feels “pretty confident” in the urban-terrain exercise, too. He also appreciated the Dagger Bde. trainers. “You can tell these Soldiers have been conducting this training a long time.”

Baum agrees. “Our team will give them the best training we possibly can with all of our combined experience. Even as trainers we go through rehearsals with each other so we are all on the same sheet of music when we train deploying Soldiers.” Baum said that is his team’s biggest asset.

“From my perspective, we are all very professional and we are committed to ‘excellence’ as opposed to just the ‘standard.’” Baum said.



www.bliss.army.mil	Published for the Fort Bliss/El Paso, Texas Community	February 24, 2005

<map name="boxmap-b4"> <area shape="rect" coords="0, 589, 120, 600" href="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm/privacy-policy.html?o=1" > <area coords="0,0,10000,10000" href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=&creative=92501&camp=8117&link_code=dl1&path=subst/misc/amazon-cobrand-cc/v3/marketing-from-associates-step1.html/ref%3Db1_assoc_29" > </map>	Urban team training molds combat engineers into infantry Soldiers Staff Sgt. Catherine Pauley 2nd Bde., 91st Div. Public Affairs Staff Sgt. Jeremy Baum, a Fort Carson-based 2nd Brigade, 91st Division trainer follows Soldiers from B Co., 107 Engineer Bn. during an urban terrain training exercise. Spc. Johnny Stachowicz leads the Ironwood, Mich.-based Soldiers. Staff Sgt. Jeremy Baum, a trainer with 2nd Brigade, 91st Division (Training Support), said the unit his team is training – the Ironwood, Mich.-based B Company, 107th Engineer Battalion – has done a great job transitioning from being combat engineers into more of an infantry-type unit as they prepare to deploy to Southwest Asia. “The unit knows their jobs as engineers so we give them a fresh sheet of paper, and as a training brigade, we teach the Soldiers from the ground up,” said Baum, an active-duty infantry Soldier. “We teach them things from short marksmanship range drills up to entering and clearing buildings.” Baum also credits his team conducting the training. “Our team at Fort Bliss works really well together. The bottom line is we have a service to these Soldiers. We aren’t the Soldiers making the decisions in Iraq and we remind the unit we can only take their training so far, then they have to ultimately make those decisions.” Baum said his observation-controller trainers teach Soldiers that a bad decision is better than no decision. “In an urban terrain situation, you have a four-man team, and you’re depending on everyone in that four-man team to get into the room, pick up security, engage targets and to come in and dominate and control that room,” he said. “As Soldiers are entering the building, we call the doorway the ‘fatal funnel’ because that’s where everybody is channeled through and it’s also where the enemy is going to focus their field of fire the majority of time. “With that said, if the No. 1 (lead) man or the No. 2 man in the team can’t decide which way they want to go when they enter a building and they get stuck in the doorway, essentially you then have four Soldiers unable to move or engage a target,” Baum said. “They depend on each other and that’s why it’s important they make a decision and go with it, even if they realize they went the wrong direction. Baum’s team also teaches target discrimination – being able to tell if the person is a bad guy or good guy. “At Fort Bliss we teach target discrimination by using color balloons – red for the bad guy and blue for unarmed civilian,” he said. This training has given these Ironwood Soldiers a feeling of confidence as they finish training prior to joining the 29th Bde. Combat Team already in Iraq. B Co.’s Spc. D.J. Hren, of Crystal Falls, Mich., has helped build the unit’s confidence with his four years of active duty infantry experience and feels pretty good going into the final two days of training. “We are growing together as a squad and are working more as a team,” Hren said. “We are learning each other’s movements and we feel comfortable as a team after all of our training.” The 24-year-old feels the urban-terrain exercise of entering and clearing a building went well. Staff Sgt. James Chiapuzio, 34, of Ironwood, said he basically hand-picked his squad. “We have a prior-service infantryman and a prior service Marine which makes our squad ‘rock’.” Chiapuzio, a squad leader said, “This urban-terrain training we are doing right now is the most meaningful training so far.” Spc. Terrance Sordahl, 23, of Mason, Wis., said the village raids were his highlight over the past two months of training but also feels “pretty confident” in the urban-terrain exercise, too. He also appreciated the Dagger Bde. trainers. “You can tell these Soldiers have been conducting this training a long time.” Baum agrees. “Our team will give them the best training we possibly can with all of our combined experience. Even as trainers we go through rehearsals with each other so we are all on the same sheet of music when we train deploying Soldiers.” Baum said that is his team’s biggest asset. “From my perspective, we are all very professional and we are committed to ‘excellence’ as opposed to just the ‘standard.’” Baum said.